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Let's agree on the obvious: the debate went terribly for President Joe Biden.
No, that may not be entirely fair: there is a lot more media piling-on today than his performance deserves; the moderators failed to put former President Donald Trump's criminal conviction front and center as they should have; and Trump's fusillade of lies, inane policy, and meandering word salads should have every Republican with integrity cringing in shame.
But political perception drives reality. The perception—more than a little merited—that when the lights were brightest Biden did not display the faculties needed to still be president is going to be crammed into voters' minds in the months ahead via media coverage and Trump ads. So, the reality is that unless they do something significant and soon, the Biden campaign is going to have to scale a vertical wall in the middle of what was already an uphill climb.
Now, the only questions that matter are does Biden have what it takes to recover, and what do the Democrats need to do if it he doesn't?
To be clear, there is a pathway to recover from a bad debate. Reagan did it. Obama did it. They owned their performance. They deflected criticism with self-deprecating humor (Obama: "I felt really well rested after the nice long nap I had in the first debate"). And then they demonstrated that, in fact, they did have what it takes.
But for Biden to do it, his team needs to be able to immediately get him in front of cameras, including at least a few where he may get tough, unprepared-for questions. They need to get him out at public events, delivering the kind of consistent, focused attack on Trump's criminality and extremism that he didn't do in the debate. They need to show that he's got it, and simply had a bad night. If they can accomplish that for the next two weeks and then leverage the certainty that the media will get absorbed by Donald Trump's sentencing on July 11, there's a decent chance they can get through this and Biden can win.
Reminder (believe me, Democrats need a reminder because we are congenital doom and gloomers): Donald Trump's unprecedented status as a convicted felon who has also been adjudicated for fraud and sexual assault is powerful new information to the voters that matter in the states that matter. As of March, half of the electorate hadn't even heard that Donald Trump had been indicted, he started slipping in polls the moment he was convicted in New York, and almost none of the swing voters who are up for grabs are paying any attention to a June debate. Anyone on Team Trump popping champagne corks and erecting a Mission Accomplished banner is deluding themselves.
However, if in the coming days Biden's close advisors and party leaders take a hard look and candidly assess that he can't perform the very public, high-stakes repair that would get him back on track, then—and only then—the leadership of the Democratic Party needs to assemble quickly and launch a plan to get onto a new path.
The key word in that last sentence is plan. If Biden were simply to drop out and put his delegates up for grabs, the result would be counterproductive chaos that left Democrats worse off. So, if we land in this scenario, party leaders need to take control of the process. It should look something like this.
There's no way to shake the nomination Etch-a-Sketch and get a re-do, so the current delegates to the convention would remain. But it would be essential that the nominee they select not appear to be merely the creature of a backroom deal. We are, after all, only eight years past the contest between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton where the perception that Democratic Party insiders steered the result alienated enough Sanders voters that they turned to Jill Stein in key swing states like Wisconsin. That played a role in swinging the election to Trump. The risk of alienating significant portions of the base in a 2024 post-Biden scrum would be magnified, especially if it looked like Party insiders were trying to jump over Vice President Kamala Harris.
So, in this scenario, the plan should include every state immediately setting up a state party convention to hear from potential replacement candidates and to vote on their choice. These votes would be non-binding. But they would confer more legitimacy and the perception of grassroots approval on an eventual national convention selection. It would take some of the sting out for supporters of the other candidates.
Another critical element of the plan should be to grab available upsides. A two-month sprint nominating contest, even an informal one before a convention selection, could be a gold mine of obsessive media coverage. We know that campaign ads have very limited impact in presidential elections, but free media can be incredibly influential (Trump's coverage in 2016 was estimated to be like getting $2 billion worth of advertising). And for the next two months every ounce of media oxygen would be sucked up by just two stories: Donald Trump's sentencing, and a made-for-TV reality show called "Who Will Dems Choose?" If the party can keep that selection positive, focused, and forward looking, it could be a great launching pad for their nominee.
None of this is an attempt to sugarcoat a tough situation. Of course, everyone who opposes Trump would wish that Biden gave the kind of debate performance that he gave at the State Of The Union, and that we were therefore in a very different place today. But we must face the situation with clear-eyed focus and determination. We need to pick a pathway fast, get on it, and make it work.
Matt Robison is a writer, podcast host, and former congressional staffer.
The views in this article are the writer's own.
